Almost nine years after the start of the 2003 Iraq war, are once again seeing U.S. politicians and elected officials targeting an oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf, claiming that it might soon build nuclear weapons, a claim based on sketchy evidence provided by sources we never see. This time the target is Iran, and the U.S. is once more trying to drag its allies with it on a path that could lead to war.

Yet while the U.S. government lectures and threatens Iran and North Korea about the evils of nuclear weapons, it routinely test fires its own long-range nuclear Minuteman missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California. Almost 450 Minuteman missiles remain deployed and on alert, part of a U.S. nuclear arsenal still large enough to end civlization in a day. The next Minuteman test launch is scheduled for February 25, 2012.

A nonviolent protest is planned at Vandenberg at five minutes to midnight, Friday February 24.

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has chartered a Green Tortoise bus that will leave for Vandenberg from Oakland at 5 pm, Feb. 24, returning by 7 am the next day, picking up people along the way.

Plan to get on the bus! $40 requested; no one turned away! Contact MacGregor Eddy: macgregoreddy@gmail.com; 831 206 5043

If you live in Southern California, please join a protest from 12 noon–1 pm on Feb. 24 at the Los Angeles Air Force Space and Missile Center, 262 N. Douglas Street.

Wherever you live, please sign the petition calling on President Obama to cancel the test and start negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons. click here to see the petition.

For more about Vandenberg Air Force Base, see the Spring 2012 Western States Legal Foundation Information Brief, Vandenberg Air Force Base: Where the Present and Future of U.S. Warmaking Come Together